Willie Brown: Hillary Clinton 'Is Going to Lose'

Veteran California politician Willie Brown has warned this weekend that presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton “is going to lose” in 2016 “[u]nless there are some serious readjustments to the Democratic operation.”

Brown made his remarks in his regular column in the San Francisco Chronicle, as he attempted to draw lessons from his party’s stunning nationwide losses in the midterm elections.

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“Everybody keeps asking me, “Why did this happen?’” Brown wrote. “Beats me. When it came to the elections, I was a dreamer who thought the Democrats were going to retain the Senate. Instead, we got walloped.”

Brown suggested that Democrats erred by running away from President Barack Obama, “which simply played into the Republicans’ strategy of portraying him as a failure.” The party also failed to turn out young voters, he said.

“Hillary Rodham Clinton must be wondering whether she really wants to run for president. Unless there are some serious readjustments to the Democratic operation, she is going to lose,” Brown concluded.

Last year, Brown had predicted Clinton would win easily in 2016: “..[A]ll she has to do is continue to breath[e] and in 2016 she’ll be elected to the presidency of the United States,” he said.

Brown served two terms as mayor of San Francisco, the first African-American to be elected to that office.